This weekend was pretty low key and the weather had somewhat of an impact on it. Cold snow and wind. Yay. On Saturday, it was a round trip of nearly 3 hours of driving to Fallon, NV for the Regional Middle School Wrestling Championships, for which Spencer qualified. Arising before dawn, we headed into the rising sun to watch him wrestle. For approximately 100 seconds.

He was the lowest seed in the championships, and his first match was against the number 1 seed. It showed. Painfully. All I can say is at least Spencer was gracious enough to bow and allow the instantaneous cradle at the start. :-) Total match length: 12 seconds.

His second match was somewhat better (it was a double elimination tournament) in that he lasted into the second period. To his credit, he went for a move that failed, and ended up on his back. Never try - never succeed, though sometimes you will fail. As Teddy Roosevelt said:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

Afterward, we headed back to the west in a dust- and sandstorm. I cringed at every gust of sand pelting my car. I had briefly toyed with the idea of going to Sand Mountain for a quick look-see, but the winds and blowing sand nixed it. Maybe another day - a calmer day - I'll head out there and poke around. Rumor has a stash of cash in a cave in the vicinity. Maybe I'll create a new sport: treasure hunt running. That's where you run from unlikely place to unlikely place looking for treasure that isn't there, racking up the miles. Yay!

I am very proud of Spencer and his accomplishment. He went from never having wrestled to finishing 8th in the regionals in only six weeks. Pretty scrappy, mi hijo!

This weekend saw me at a wrestling tournament for my son. I haven't seen high school wrestling, or as this was, middle school wrestling, since I participated myself. But that was so many years ago, they did the timing with sundials. The energy permeating the gym was amazing, as was the skill of some of the wrestlers. Some were quite good - to the point of me thinking, "these are seventh graders?!" Spencer did well enough to qualify for the Northern Nevada Regional Finals next week, and he is very excited for the next tournament on the 31st . (OK, I'm excited too.)

Below is the video of the match that qualified him. It was cut off before the end due to the score differential. After the match, Spencer was gracious in victory, sincerely shaking hands with his opponent, the ref and the opposing coach. I like that he is being taught to shake the hands of all involved. Sports may end for him at some point in the future, but gracious actions in victory are a life skill.

I also wanted to see one other wrestler in particular. This one young man had an undefeated season rolling along. He was confident, as he had previously met and defeated all potential opponents. I was hoping to catch one or two of his matches - as long as it didn't interfere with seeing Spencer. As it turned out, I saw two of his matches; so much for the undefeated season. He was pinned in both.

I was curious to see how he would react. Predictably, he was crushed after the first loss. I drifted over to eavesdrop as he was talking to his coach, and later his mom. No blaming, no deflection. He admitted he flat out lost. He was disappointed, sure, but he owned the loss in the same way as you should own the win. All on him. He was smiling and congratulating his ecstatic opponent after the second. That, dear readers, is losing with dignity.

From my perspective, the first match could have gone either way. Both wrestlers were good, and the match exciting. The second? Well, I think he wanted to get it over with, and went with a high-risk/high reward move. Unfortunately, he missed the high reward and was left with the high risk. It happens.

On another note, after the tournament, I went for my longest reasonably-pain-free run in weeks. Of course, it was barely 5K. Still, a pain free 5K is more than I had a month ago. Maybe the hip and glute strengthening program I am doing is working. That and/or the planking. I am up to 2:30 per plank on elbows, then shortly thereafter, on hands. What I like about the regimen is that I can read while doing it. I was wrapping up Brent Weeks' The Black Prism. Great stuff to take your mind off the pain and trembling of your muscles.